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boats

By now, you probably already know my aesthetic when it comes to photos, I like stark contrasts, I like using the sky as a replacement of negative spaces, I like to spot one thing which looks striking against everything else (almost as if it is completely out of place), here it is the Kashti-wala (boat man) I spotted while sitting on a hammock outside my cabin not too long ago.

One of the things I’ve caught myself doing especially on my travels is notice strangers, going about their day, completely oblivious to the presence of the rest of the world, and I can’t help but wonder what their lives must be like. Like this one. Does this man wake up at the crack of dawn, get on his boat and row across the river to go fishing, so he can feed his family, is this his job. Does he love his job. Or did his son fancy a meal with meen curry (fish curry) which this doting dad could not refuse. Does he love his life. Does he aspire (perhaps like most of us) that he will one day fly away to a far off land, to a different reality. Constantly feeling like there must be more than this provincial life. (If you don’t know the reference, I’m afraid we can’t be friends). Or does he feel content, like he is the king of his world. Confident in his abilities as an expert boat man.

So many stories quickly get woven in my imagination but the reality is something I will never know, and strangely enough its something I never stop wondering about. Each person, so many stories, such different lives the world has within it (all 7.5 billion), and most times we barely notice the ones who are right next to us, what a shame!

If only we had a better ability to recognize that the guy next to us is perhaps just like us, maybe with different demons to battle, different hope and dreams, different priorities, different lives, but somehow still the same.

South Bombay aka SoBo brings back some fond memories, but this one is my favorite, standing in front of the iconic Taj Mahal hotel looking at the Gateway of India, but because of the never ending crowd of people, I couldn’t get a clear shot of the monument.

Dejected, I just started looking around and found this sight, the tiny boats and vast sky, and realised this was what I was meant to click.